


Minstrel Cycle

by RainofLittleFishes



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Crack, Kink Meme, Period Fic - by which I don't mean Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:11:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3097715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/pseuds/RainofLittleFishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: XXp100: Failure_Artist: Unlike normal girls who just have menstrual cycles, Jane instead gets MINSTREL cycles. For three to five days each month she is visited by a little bard named Gamzee who sings horrorcore madrigals to her. </p>
<p>This is crack. Just so you know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Minstrel Cycle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FailureArtist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FailureArtist/gifts).



> Dear Failure(_)Artist,   
> I meant to gift this to you from the beginning, but alas, was stumped when I searched for you with the underscore. Better late than never? (I am sometimes clever, but seldom swift.)

It’s back. You have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. There may, possibly, be a wet spot in your undies. You have a headache. You roll over and clamp your pillow over your head and wish you just got cramps. You can hear it anyhow, and now you can’t breathe. You roll back over and swipe at it with the pillow. It dodges and bounces back, still smiling. You think you could step on it and it wouldn’t stop smiling. You could step on it and its little guts would squirt out and it’d probably have a tiny stiffy and it would still be smiling and it would still “serenade” you in all its zombie gory. That thought, and how you honestly consider it for a moment, is worse than putting up with it, and you stop flailing and flop on your back. It climbs up the bedspread and plops down cross-legged on your stomach, not incidentally reclining above your unoccupied babyholding parts.

“Hey, finest of sis-bros, it’s being good to see you, yeah? It’s been a whole month, and I just knew this morning was it. This morning I was gonna get to be seeing my Janey and comforting her in her time of need ta bleed.”

“Go away. _Please_.”

“Can’t be doing that. Well. Not without, _you know_.”

You do know. You made the mistake of asking once and were regaled with ten minutes of euphemisms for pregnancy as related by this perpetually semi-stoned super midget in a codpiece.

Every month, like the clockwork of the damned, you receive a visit from your _minstrel cycle_. Mom tells you to hurry up and get with the baby-making and that this is just a bit of incentive. Mom can shove it out her tight ass-end, you’re adopted and she’s never shoved a watermelon out her cunt and you have career aspirations that don’t involve teen parenthood. Any man brave or stupid enough to get it on with Mom would probably have his bits fall off of the cold. You have no plans to get with the baby-making, though you _are_ tempted to start playing hooky or smoking just to spite her. Unfortunately, those don’t appeal to you much either. Maybe you should take up drinking. It’s got to be less agonizing to hear drunk. Or you could just get him drunk and leave while he was distracted. It can’t be that hard, right? You’ll ask Roxy. Maybe you’ll just take him on a long trip and leave him with her. Roxy would love this fairy godfather of the foul.

Gamzee bounces up, reminding you that you haven’t made it to the bathroom yet this morning, and launches into a bawdry edition of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. It ends with “no matter how much you scream” and he demonstrates. Jeeze. You pinch your noise and submit to a rendition of “There Once Was A Man From Nantucket”. From the eyebrow wiggles and hip thrusts, clearly “bucket” is more sexually charged than “fuck it”. Not that you’ve ever really considered Gamzee in a sexual sense, but this makes your lady parts want to pack up and move fully indoors and take the welcome mat with them. There’s a moment of blessed silence, and you look up. Maybe that time of the month has found better things to do?

“Hey, sis, I don’t think you be into this here smooth groove I’m working so hard to set for ya. How ‘bout some seasonally appropriated carols? I got all these here c-ar-ol-s.” This last part is a wheedle, and you hate that as much as you dislike him, you can’t actually be enthused about making him cry great clownodile tears. You did it once, and your period only lasted three days, but it just wasn’t worth it. Never again. You shrug.

“What do you know?”

“I got ‘Twelve Castes of Miraclemas’, ‘Snark the Horrors, Terrors Sing’, and ‘Oh Little Troll of Bethlehem’. What do you be having a hankering to be hearing, my ladypart friend?”

You’re clearly not thinking clearly, because you now know the entire chorus to “Little Troll of Bethlehem” and you may, possibly, have to sniff a bit to clear your sinuses when the troll gets crucified and burned alive at the end. You sweep him off onto the covers and make a run for the bathroom. You take a shower and almost feel ready to face the music. You return to the scene of the clown. It’s worse when you leave the house on your period, because most people can’t see him, so you’re just slowly going mad with an audience. You boot up your laptop and try to ignore the weight on your knee, now serenading you with “Oh Come Like Old Faithful”.

You shake your head in the sudden silence. It feels like your ears are ringing.

Gamzee puts his lute-thing down and sits back down on your knee, all folded up in a ball, heels and elbows digging into you, painted face propped on his hands. He looks more solemn than you’ve ever seen him, and you are suddenly struck by how little you know about him.

“Sister, I think we be needing some Words now. I think we be needing some Words for a while now. I shred my graspfronds to the calcium deposits for a sigh and scream my windhole to a drainpipe for your pumpbiscuit’s thumping, but you don’t seem to get your care on for all this here fin amour. If you don’t be wanting me, get grubbed up. It’s sending all sorts of mixed signals to invite a troll all over and not even hit me. I don’t even got my know on as to if you want pitch or flush. What gives?”

“Gamzee, I never invited you, you just showed up. And I’m way too young for kids, so not getting up the duff is not the same as hanging out a ‘please visit’ sign. Don’t you have something better to do? What do you do when you’re not here?”

“Well, your SnowQueenMom’s got a nice mayo jar in her closet and I’ve got a whole sock to myself in it. I practice my songs and sometimes she gets her remembering on and feeds me.” Now you feel guilty. You went on a weeklong fieldtrip last year and Mom said your fish would be fine and you set up an automated feeder and lights and checked the heater and pumps, and they still died. Mom has an un-nurturing field.

“Do you _like_ living in Mom’s closet?”

“Like is a very STRONG Word for somethin that be just getting its jizzy is on.” He tilts his head, like a crow eyeing a very tasty tidbit and wondering if you’ll figure out where it is, and maybe share.

“You can have the entire floor of my closet and three meals a day if you stop with the Monthly Horror, Gore, Sex, and Sacrilege Song Catalog.”

“A Bard has got to be getting his Sing on, Janey, or he all shrivels down and up an disappears. This here is a fun size but I get to shrinking anymore and if you don’t say ‘Eat Me’ I’ll be gone.”

“You can sing some, but the flirting has to stop.”

“What about roommates? I got a bitchtits house party in mind.”

“You can fit as many people in the closet as you want, as long as I can sleep at night and someone cleans up when you’re done.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Jane-bro. Anything this here Bard can do to get his sing on for the Maiden’s Head?”

“You can go serenade Mom. And you can stop making jokes at me about virginity and sex.”

“Anything my lady-part dove be wanting.”

And the weight on your knee disappears.

In the silence of your house, you hear your mother scream in frustration. There’s a crash like a lamp falling and more screaming before it dies down again. There’s a sound like something hitting a metal grate a few times. It sounds like Gamzee’s found a vent where he can sing and she can’t get at him easily. All is finally right with the world. You can feel an ache in your gut like a cramp sidling up to survey the newly vacated territory. You mentally embrace it with the quiet.

You hum, “Oh Little Troll of Bethlehem” and look for a few songs Gamzee might like to add to his repertoire.


End file.
